Surrendering Your Heavenly Passport

Whenever a citizen of a country is convicted of a crime against the state and is about to be incarcerated, one of the first things the government requires is that he surrender his passport. A passport is one of our most significant symbols of citizenship because it is an official document that identifies our legal status as a citizen of a specific nation. It grants us the freedom as citizens to travel outside our country and still enjoy all the rights and privileges that we have at home.

In requiring a citizen to surrender his passport, the government is saying, "You are under judgement and during that time have forfeited your citizenship rights." Citizens have the right to move freely, earn a living, own property, buy food, drive on the streets, pay taxes and receive benefits and services provided by their government. A citizen who is convicted of a crime has fallen out of favor or position with the government. During the terms of the sentence, he must forgo many of those rights and privileges; particularly freedom of movement. Incarcerated prisoners must endure great restrictions of their personal freedom. The correctional system owns them and controls every aspect of their lives from the time they get up in the morning to when they eat, what they do during the day and when they go to bed.

This was Adam's experience when he disobeyed God's government. When Adam sinned, he lost his favored status. In other words, Adam fell out of position with the government and had all of his citizen rights cancelled. God took away "his passport" and Adam became a prisoner of darkness, a slave to sin and was ruled by a "warden" named Satan.

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;In toil you shall eat of itAll the days of your life.Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,And you shall eat the herb of the field.In the sweat of your face you shall eat breadTill you return to the ground,For out of it you were taken;For dust you are,And to dust you shall return.”

...therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.